4 Ways to Keep Family COVID-safe if you go Home for Christmas

December 14, 2020

4 Ways to Keep Family Safe if you Travel to Grandma for Christmas

Are you planning to travel over the COVID river and through the mask-free woods to Grandma’s this holiday season?

How can you possibly stay safe? Do you trust your friends and family members to follow the standard safety protocols? Will they wear face coverings, maintain physical distance, and keep surfaces sanitized? Has anyone experienced symptoms recently or had contact with a person who is infected?

Answering these questions before you go may make those already awkward dinner conversations a lot less uncomfortable and may prevent you or aging parents from dying this holiday just as the vaccine is here.

CHECK THE COVID RATE WHERE ARE GOING

NPR has suggestions about traveling on the holiday for adult children who must travel to Grandma’s on the holidays. This includes first checking out the COVID rate in the area where Grandma lives by using NPR’s coronavirus tracker to check this.

CHECK THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE INVITED

The CDC says check out where others are traveling from and the number of people at the gathering among other guidelines from out very maligned by the Trump administration but storied science-based lead healthcare agency.

Travel Off-Peak Time

The Atlantic Magazine, a highly respected and historic magazine recommends, traveling off-peak or traveling a few days earlier, safer for you to drive, stay with Grandma or family, not friends and follow those basic guidelines, masking, distance, etc.

Read ALL & Find Common Thread of Safety

Check them all out and see what is repeated over and over and also what is feasible for you to travel to Grandpa and Grandma, stay safe yourself, keep elders safe and alive next holiday season after the vaccine.

Sign Up for My January Webinar

Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel Geriatric Care 1

When “Cut Off” in The Family is a ” Phantom Limb” at Thanksgiving

November 26, 2020

The Dysfunctional Family’s Worst Time of The Year

Thanksgiving can be the gateway to the dysfunctional family’s worst time of year- the holidays. You face family across the table you despise or just both love and hate. Or there is that empty seat- the uninvited guest- the brother-sister, aunt, son, daughter who you never invite- the cut off-family member.

Families Phantom Limb

But since this leaves the family with that “phantom limb”- like the awful sensation that an amputated or missing limb is still attached and where it was is pulsating in pain- families reach out for someone to fix it.

The ordinary aging processes are made far tougher when a family has a history of dysfunction. Aging professionals, like geriatric care managers, have their greatest challenges in working with these “difficult” families around this time of year.

Dysfunctional Families Fail Eldercare

Dysfunctional families are not able to organize themselves effectively in the face of eldercare challenges and crises. These families are under more stress as they move from long-established roles into uncharted territory.

Family” Cut” off faces Phantom Limb at Thanksgiving

What if they “ cut off” their Dad years ago and now he had a severe stroke-what do they do?? Someone has to take over Mom or Dad’s care and these dysfunctional midlife adult kids are heavy ambivalent or just don’t want to do it. Now that the holidays are arriving – they have the same attitude about attending the family Thanksgiving dinner.

My favorite aging dysfunctional family ” cut off ” Thanksgiving film is Pieces of April Made as a comedy in 2003, it touches death and dying, sibling rivalry, mother-daughter estrangement, interracial love- and Alzheimer’s all fueled by deep family fault lines and how to cook a turkey on a broken stove. The film manages to make the old theme of fraught family Thanksgiving, crisp, funny, and ultra worth watching.I ordered it from Netflix but you can watch on YOUTUBE

Shot in 3 weeks for a measly $350 K, it received a Sundance Film award and accolades for its pedigree cast including 21-year-old Katie Holmes as the grunge Goth daughter who her family has ” Cut Off”, Patricia Clarkson as the dying Mom who distains then forgives her rebellious eldest child and Alice Drummond as the demented grandmother who comes along and plays the most rational person in the film in her obliviousness to the family holiday freak-out.

SIGN UP FOR MY WEBINAR

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

Learn how!

How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent struggling with Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

Find out more about Holiday Adult Child Freak out- in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel Geriatric Care 1

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel Geriatric Care 1

Adult Sibling Rivalry at Thanksgiving- Where To Get Help?

November 14, 2020

Siblings are The Biggest Source Of Stress Between Human Being

At family rituals, like Thanksgiving next week, adult siblings often are often brought back together. If you are one- will it be a happy feast?

As Gail Sheehy says in her book, Passages in Caregiving, we think that siblings will automatically support each other when aging parents fall apart. Sheehy quotes sociologists, Karl Pillemer and J. Jill Suitor, in a study they did conclude that siblings are inherent rivals and the biggest source of stress between human beings.

If you are a midlife sibling, perhaps you have a brother or sister to whom you hardly speak. Maybe you are about to see your siblings at the coming Thanksgiving feast, even on zoom during COVID, and anticipate largely ignoring him or her or doing chitchat as you seethe the inside. If you fit this description, you are in the same lurching boat as uncounted baby boomer siblings all over the world.

Childhood Wound Ripped Open

That wound from childhood may still ache enough to keep you on the furrowed path your family followed when you were young. Now, however, you and adult siblings, nearing or at retirement age, may need to come together again to be part of a niece or

nephew’s wedding or christening, help plan a parent’s anniversary dinner or, most important, oversee the increasing care of elderly family members.

Best Thanksgiving Sibling War Film

I suggest you watch Pieces of April, a fabulous Thanksgiving film ( lead Katy Holmes debuts in a standout performance) where the film’s dysfunctional family revolves around adult sibling rivalry. The film is also, in the end. around a catastrophic illness of the aging parent, where the siblings need to resolve their differences.

If you recognize this problem in your own family, seek counseling before coming the holidays engulfs you. Contact the Aging Life Care Association to find help before a parental crisis.

SIGN UP FOR MY WEBINAR

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

Learn how!

How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent struggling with Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel Geriatric Care 1

8 Steps to Take to Avoid Midlife Sibling Mayhem on Thanksgiving

November 12, 2020

Ritual Celebrations + COVID Turn Into Kick- Boxing

Celebrations, (like Thanksgiving coming up) Hanukah, Christmas

Father’s – any holiday— can be a nightmare with adult siblings and the dysfunctional family. You have to show up, yet you prepare for the daggers or uppercuts – either wielded by you as a sibling.

Tips to Save the Holidays

1) It is a holiday event, not a family meeting. If you want to talk about personal issues, make a date to get together with your angry sister/brother.

2) Remember that it is Thanksgiving and not all about you. Keep a positive attitude for the sake of your aging parent if they are there, your own kids your nieces and nephews, and your adult siblings.

4)Have a family meeting to discuss COVID restrictions and the best way to stay safe,

which might mean a zoom meal Do not exclude in the decision. Again to build a team effort.

5) Call ahead and arrange to split the bill if you order individual meals from a restaurant due to COVID – ahead of time- again team effort and no embarrassing credit card bargaining at the table that only brings on more fights.

6) Keep your alcohol in check. You can’t control anyone else but you can control and even change yourself. We all say things we may regret with lots of nervous drinking.

7) Check out in-person family meeting tools and some free online meeting tools so if you have an aging parent you can arrange care between siblings with online after the holiday get meeting- not in midst of holiday visit.

8) Hire an aging life care manager to facilitate a family meeting.

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

Learn how!

How to sell services to the desperate Aging Family during the holiday surge
How to give hope to frantic children who call when their aging parent strugglingwith Loneliness and isolation on the holidays
How to help the Aging Family make holiday visits remotely or safely in person
How to counsel the Aging Family to track aging decline &Twindemic risk in loved ones
How to work with both dysfunctional and long-distance families who call during the holidays
How to use GCM tools to contain Holiday chaos
How to use financial forecasting to prepare for business growth during the holidays

Sidestep the Many Care Managers Who Do not know how to work with Dysfunctional family or do COVID Coaching of Aging Families so the client chooses you

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Sign Up Now

Find out more in the YouTube for My YouTube, Channel Geriatric Care 1

The 2 Deadliest US Sites of COVID-19 Nursing Homes & Prisons

May 2, 2020

PRISON INMATES AND NURSING HOME PATIENTS NOT 6FT APART – 6 FEET UNDER

70% of inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19. In Kansas, the Lansing Correctional Facility had a riot of inmates over COVID-19 lack of care or protection It took the rebellion to get the coronavirus testing PPE and care. The Bureau of Prisons in Kansas confirmed finally that 79 staff have coronavirus and 88 prisons and prisoners dead.

Older residents in nursing homes cannot rebel like prisoners. Many can’t even walk. The Atlantic Magazine just published an article, We are Killing Elders Now. The writer states “In at least six states, these fatalities account for half of all COVID-19 deaths, and according to the World Health Organization, half of all coronavirus fatalities in Europe have been traced to nursing homes too. Some of this mortality is linked to long-term-care facilities that are shoddily run or that violate health standards. But most of them are doing the best they can with what they have. And they don’t have much”.

KAISER FOUNDATION NURSING HOME STAFFING AND USE OF PPE NOT REQUIRED IN MOST STATES

Kaiser reports -Staff Screening. It is more common for states to recommend rather than require daily screening of staff for illness in NFs (24 states recommend, 16 states + DC require)

Use of PPE. More states recommend (23 states) than require (7 states + DC) staff to use PPE

Two States that require testing for coronavirus of ALL residents of nursing homes are Maryland where 556 have died as of the Washington Post article. and Tennessee

THE FEDS HAVE NO CMS FEDERAL GUIDELINES OR REPORTING

We have no federal guidelines for safety testing according to an article by the Kaiser Foundation

It is now estimated that 16,000 deaths have occurred in nursing homes and that is without the federal government revealing any numbers and not making available any testing. But the numbers are probably huge- if we could just do testing.

CMS announced it would have a meeting of a “panel” of experts “ sometime at the end of May”. After probably 20,000 older people died and the feds did nothing this shows their sense of urgency about this pandemic’s national “elder cleansing”.

WHAT CONNECTS PRISONS AND NURSING HOMES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS

So, what is the connection between the viral spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes and prisons- 6 feet ? Prisoners and residents, in nursing homes, and prisons cannot social distance. Jails and prisons have human beings crammed together with no choice. Nursing homes have 2 beds or if you are on Medicaid three to a room. Neither group has a choice to social distance. They are ” concentrated” as in concentration camps or death camps.

Do SOMETHING – HELP NURSING HOMES PREVENT MORE CARNAGE

So, as someone who has spent her career in aging, I am calling out to everyone, especially professional in aging – do something. Since the feds appear to be doing little- call your congressman, write a letter to the editor.

BE KIND LIKE RACHEL MADDOW REPORTS LA JEWISH HOME LA WAS

Rachel Maddow suggests calling your local nursing homes and see what they need. Be kind like the LA Jewish Home was to a smaller nursing home LA Brier Oaks. They wanted to test their residents and had no tests and the larger LA Jewish Home had tests and shared them with the smaller as a good neighbor. What they found was ravaging but it also showed caring and generosity. Care and be generous and show the helpless elders in nursing homes in your town you are opposed to -nursing home being prisons or concentration camps.

Contact

Connect with Cathy

Get Cathy’s “10 Critical Success Steps to a Profitable Aging Life or GCM Business”

4 Ways to Keep Family Safe if you Travel to Grandma for Christmas

CHECK THE COVID RATE WHERE ARE GOING

CHECK THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE INVITED

Travel Off-Peak Time

Read ALL & Find Common Thread of Safety

Working with Aging Dysfunctional Families- January and February-Long Day’s Journey into Night-

Thursday, January 21, 2021

The Dysfunctional Family’s Worst Time of The Year

Families Phantom Limb

Dysfunctional Families Fail Eldercare

Family” Cut” off faces Phantom Limb at Thanksgiving

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel Geriatric Care 1

Siblings are The Biggest Source Of Stress Between Human Being

Childhood Wound Ripped Open

Best Thanksgiving Sibling War Film

THIS FREE WEBINAR IS Thursday, December 3, 2020, FROM 2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

Ritual Celebrations + COVID Turn Into Kick- Boxing

Tips to Save the Holidays

8 Ways to Tame the Turmoil of the Holidays & Twindemic in the Aging Family

PRISON INMATES AND NURSING HOME PATIENTS NOT 6FT APART – 6 FEET UNDER

KAISER FOUNDATION NURSING HOME STAFFING AND USE OF PPE NOT REQUIRED IN MOST STATES

THE FEDS HAVE NO CMS FEDERAL GUIDELINES OR REPORTING

WHAT CONNECTS PRISONS AND NURSING HOMES – CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Do SOMETHING – HELP NURSING HOMES PREVENT MORE CARNAGE

BE KIND LIKE RACHEL MADDOW REPORTS LA JEWISH HOME LA WAS

Contact

Connect with Cathy

Get Cathy’s “10 Critical Success Steps to a Profitable Aging Life or GCM Business”